The Impact of COVID-19 on Primary Educational Publishers in Australia

Abstract

Based on interviews with 10 professionals from primary educational publishers and educational technology companies based in Australia, this article examines the challenges and impact of COVID-19 on publishing operations and outputs, and the future of the sector. The publishers had to deliver digital materials quickly, effectively and often for free to assist educators with the transition to remote learning, while working remotely themselves. They also had to transfers sales, support and professional learning online. Overall, while operationally challenging, the pandemic has accelerated the demand for digital products and facilitated growth of the sector.

Towards “Born-Accessible” Educational Publishing

“…Despite having their progress slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic [18], a notably higher proportion of respondents (almost 60%) indicated engagement with accessibility compared with Australia's (40%) broader publishing industry result in 2020 [1]. Overall, this is not surprising, given educational publishers' stronger legal, moral and commercial imperatives.…”

Ki̇tapçidaki̇ Vi̇rüs: Pandemi̇ İstanbul'un Yayincilik Sektörünü Nasil Etki̇ledi̇?

“…Nevertheless, existing research already suggests that individual experiences of the pandemic have been strongly influenced by these conflicts, resulting in similar experiences across regions. On the other hand, variations in experiences between countries have also been observed due to differences in market structure and size (Kovač and Gudinavičius, 2021), technological and financial capabilities (Brinton, 2021;Done, Warner, and Noorda, 2022), institutional structure (Guren et al, 2021;Reid and Mrva-Montoya, 2022), and government support (Zhang et al, 2022).…”

“…Overall, large companies have been less damaged by these upheavals for several reasons: they had strong financial capabilities, lobbying, and bargaining powers, so they were more capable of managing disruptions and price fluctuations; they were less reliant on physical book production, so they were more successful in product diversification; and more importantly, they had a more diverse physical and online sales network so that they could maintain their sales turnovers during the closures (Brinton, 2021;Reid and Mrva-Montoya, 2022;Vecco et al, 2022). However, the crises were more difficult for independent publishers, as they were TESAM more vulnerable to price ups and more reliant on physical bookstores (FEP, 2021).…”

“…The ban on redundancies has further added to the financial burden on bookshops that already suffer losses from closures. To compensate for these losses, bookstores, particularly those without the option of accessing digital marketplaces, had to change their range by offering non-book products such as coffee, souvenirs, and electronic devices in their shops: Another strategy employed by publishing companies during the pandemic was to delay the publication of new books, decrease the number of reprints, and focus on popular products (IPA, 2020;Reid and Mrva-Montoya, 2022). All the publishers surveyed stated that they did not release new titles except those they were fairly sure about returns and that they were satisfied with the reprints of some of their best-selling books.…”